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<\/p>\nEven these notorious\u00a0“butcher birds” have their tender moments.<\/p>\n
Loggerhead Shrikes are often called butcher birds because of their tendency to impale prey on thorns or barbed wire and then use the leverage provided by the anchored prey to pull it apart into bite-sized pieces. They’re fierce little predators, not much larger than a typical sparrow but they often take prey nearly as large as themselves\u00a0including small songbirds, voles and lizards. I know from experience that to watch them eat can be a gory spectacle.<\/p>\n
But yesterday morning on Antelope Island\u00a0I photographed\u00a0two of them\u00a0in a rare tender moment.<\/p>\n
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1\/8000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Loggerhead Shrike sexes are similar but for reasons that will soon become\u00a0evident this bird is a female. She perched here for quite a while and as she’s doing here she often looked behind her in the direction of another shrike\u00a0some distance out of frame to the left. I was aware of the presence of\u00a0the second shrike but couldn’t see what it was doing while I\u00a0was watching her through my lens.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n When the second bird unexpectedly appeared in my viewfinder I instinctively laid on my shutter button and this was the first sharp shot I got just as the second shrike (a male)\u00a0landed next to her.<\/p>\n He was bearing gifts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n He had food in his bill (when I blow up this image it appears to be an insect grub) which he\u00a0presented to her and she immediately gobbled down. I didn’t have a very good angle on their faces but in this photo\u00a0the food exchange is obvious.<\/p>\n When\u00a0Loggerhead Shrikes are courting each other\u00a0the female accepts prey from the male in a process called “courtship feeding” (thus the female is the bird on the right). This behavior continues throughout the incubation and nesting period\u00a0so I don’t know how far their relationship had developed at this\u00a0point\u00a0but they were clearly either courting or strengthening a pair bond that had already been established.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/11, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n After the food exchange they posed nicely together for some time. Males are somewhat larger\u00a0than females and that size difference is\u00a0obvious here.<\/p>\n In situations like this the\u00a0use of a teleconverter has its advantages and disadvantages. For most of the time I was shooting these shrikes I\u00a0wasn’t using mine and that gave me more depth of field to get two birds relatively sharp but the tradeoff was a little less detail than I’d have had if I’d been using it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/11, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n But I didn’t have enough DOF for a shot like this one so neither bird is as sharp as I’d like but I still think it’s an interesting photo.<\/p>\n Loggerhead\u00a0Shrikes\u00a0have unusually large heads (loggerhead means “blockhead”) and that fact is obvious in this perspective on the female as she flies head-on toward the viewer.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/8000, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, canvas added for composition,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Soon after the female took off toward me her mate launched to my right. I had to add canvas on the right for composition which I don’t like to do but for me shrike flight shots are quite difficult to get so I wanted to “save” this one.<\/p>\n It’s been a very long time since I’ve had any good opportunities with shrikes so I really enjoyed my session with these “wannabe raptors” yesterday morning.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n Note to locals about a disturbing trend on Antelope Island:<\/em><\/p>\n Yesterday morning we found about a dozen gulls dead on the ground in a very small area on the north end of the island. They had no\u00a0visible injuries and they appeared to have only recently died.\u00a0I reported what we’d seen to a park employee and asked her if park officials were aware of the situation. She said they’d had reports of dead grebes in large numbers and they were “investigating” but this was the first report of dead gulls. She said she’d report our finding to appropriate park personnel.<\/em><\/p>\n Dead grebes sounds like it might be an outbreak of botulism but I’d be slightly surprised if that’s what’s killing gulls. Time will\u00a0tell but whatever the cause it’s a disturbing trend.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/loggerhead-shrike-5556-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"loggerhead-shrike-5556-ron-dudley\\"")
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